1,216 Days Since the Senate Passed a Budget

Aug 29, 2012

1,216 days ago, the Senate passed a budget. Since that point, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has refused to do his legal responsibility and pass a budget through his chamber. While it’s not his only abdication of duty – Sen. Reid has also refused to reform Social Security, and used the Senate floor to dishonorably attack Mitt Romney over his taxes – this may be his most important one. As Tea Party Patriots pointed out earlier this month, how can we stop overspending when there isn’t even a budget to consider?

This failure by Sen. Reid has been beat up by conservatives and liberals alike over the last several years, but let’s provide some fun facts to that can compare to 1,216 days:

1,216 days is equal to 3.33 years. Which means the last time Sen. Reid passed a budget, Obama had been President for less than six months

1,216 days ago Tea Party Patriots was barely a thought, never mind an organization with 1.5 million supporters

The distance from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Fairfax, Virginia is 1,213 miles, according to Google Maps

Nobody had heard of Solyndra 1,216 days ago

Bernie Madoff wasn’t yet a convict 1,216 days ago

The national debt was a little over $11 trillion 1,216 days ago

Presidents Bush and Obama, and leaders in both parties, have failed in many ways when it comes to the federal budget. However, to their credit, President Obama, Speaker Boehner, and other leaders in Washington have at least showed the American people what their spending priorities are. While their priorities (especially President Obama’s, which has major tax increases and significantly misleading numbers on economic growth) may not be the methods of Tea Party Patriots, at least they have put forward a budget whose merits can be debated in the open. By not following the law, Sen. Reid is not allowing a free and open debate on the priorities of Democrats in the Senate, and is thus disenfranchising the people of his state and the people of the states of all other Senators.